Hair by the Cowsills

HAIR!!!!

For my birthday I got tickets to the musical Hair in Denver for October. THE SEATS ARE RIGHT BEHIND THE ORCHESTRA! I am so excited. :) (Let the Sunshine In is my song. It popped into my beloved teacher, Mr. Staton's, head when I was wearing bell bottoms on a free dress day and he sang it in front of the whole class as I was giving them notes.)

Buddy Holly: That Makes it Tough RECORDED FROM HIS APARTMENT! SOUNDS AWESOME! :)

Rebel Without a Cause: "YOU'RE TEARING ME APART!..."

Crickets

This Christmas I received a Buddy Holly memorial collection that included 2 CDs (60 songs all together and some undubbed) along with a bunch of interesting liner notes to go with them. Today, I swear I heard the cricket in the background that was in Buddy's garage when he recorded songs with his band. His band was later called the Crickets. :)

The Best Music There Is

I find happiness in hearing oldies in unexpected places. :)

"Sunshine"

  The 60's are a very big influence on me. It's the Civil Rights Movement that got me into civil rights and made MLK and Mahatma Gandhi my heroes. It's the protest of Vietnam that opened my eyes to the horrors of war. It's the Beatles that made me crazed (Yep. I used to cry when I watched them on my Ed Sullivan DVDs) and made me want to delve deeper into the culture of their decade. It all started with a tie-die stroller......

  I was never always like this. In 6th grade our teacher played Revolution for us by the Beatles because we were learning about the French Revolution. I was hooked. I borrowed the cd that this song is on: "The Beatles: Past Masters Volume 1". I have been asked a few times what got me into the Beatles and I think that was it. I am known as the Beatles Fan at school. In junior high, kids would all robotically turn their heads to look at me at the same time whenever the shot of the Beatles would pop up in the intro of our videos.

  My clothes scream the voices of the decade. My whole closet is full of short dresses and two long, some new to look vintage and 1 actually vintage. I call the vintage one "60's Mainstream" because it is long with long sleeves. I have a pair of new-to-look-vintage patch work bell bottoms. They have a secret velcro pocket down where the leg flares out. I have real pink pearls that I got for my 16 birthday (I wear them with everything) and red, red lipstick (for special occasions). I know these last two parts are 50's, but I wanted to mention them anyways. :)

  It is unclear to me why I am this way. I guess we were all put on this earth to be a certain way and have a certain goal, so here I am. :) Maybe this was my past life. I don't know if that even exists. What I do know is that I was born in the wrong decade as my wonderful teacher Mr. Staton likes to point out. (I LOVE THAT GUY!)

  Here's a funny thing, I recently turned 16 and on my birthday I requested You're Sixteen by Johnny Burnette on my favorite radio station and SOMEBODY (wink, wink) did not believe I was 16! Truthfully, I still hardly believe it myself. They probably thought I was some crazy old lady thinking I was 16. :) (It is ok. I am not offended by this and I don't want you to be offended by this. Some how I saw this coming.) I like to think that I am their youngest listener.

Peace, Love, and Beatles!

Catelyn (Sunshine)

For Norma Jeane :)

Norma Jeane

   Sweet Norma Jeane Baker (Marilyn Monroe) is more than a sex symbol and IS NOT "a dumb blond". Behind her alluring appeal was a lonely girl yearning to be loved. She was the love child of a man who, even when she became famous, refused to have anything to do with her. He left when he found out she was going to be born.
   Her mother loved her and she tried her best as Norma later said. Her mother had nervous breakdowns and became institutionalized on the account of her daughter's father leaving.
Norma Jeane was put under the care of her mother's best friend until her mother's best friend got married and put her into an orphanage. Her guardian felt bad for putting her into an orphanage and sent her to live with this guardian's aunt. This aunt became an aunt to Norma and also a loving and inspiring person to her.
    As legal guardian, the best friend of Norma's mother, married her off at 16 to get rid of her. Norma Jeane was scared. She was very young and never thought about marriage. This marriage only lasted a few years (She also had two more marriages in the coming years that were short. One of which was to Joe DiMaggio, who was often jealous of how much her beauty was admired). Her husband didn't want her to be a model or an actress. She divorced him to pursue her dreams.
     Soon after this divorce came her career in modeling. Her picture on the cover a magazine was noticed and the word of her picture got to a talent agent which launched her acting career. Through 60 second appearances (even one of just her back) and lots of waiting and grooming to become an actress, she got her big break as the lead role in the Marx Brothers film, Love Happy.
     Over the course of her short life, she loved acting. She was eager to please and didn't want to let anybody down. She believed her fans really knew her and that she wouldn't have been popular without them.
  Despite all this love from her fans, she wanted to have a husband and a child and she hated living alone. She wanted also to be taken seriously. She was tired of playing the same dumb/ sexy character. In her last interview she begged the reporter to close it with her saying, "What I really want to say. That what the world needs is a real feeling of kinship. Everybody: stars, laborers, Negroes, Jews, Arabs. We are all brothers....Please don't make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe."...
The media was what created her as a sex symbol. They changed her hair and changed her name. The famous scene of her in her sleeveless white dress being billowed up was innocent and fun at first, but ended up being used as shallow entertainment for the men watching it and recording it. She disapproved of the shallow extra shots and hoped they wouldn't end up at a "private party" or in the movie for a whole family to see.
   Our lovely Norma Jean Baker died on August, 4th 1962 from an over dose of pills. The popular theory is that it was suicide. One particular man that I know of, one of her many photographers, George Barris, thinks she was murdered. He couldn't believe that she killed herself because she was happy with where she was in life and she was excited to finish the book she was making with him about her. Every time you happen to think of Marilyn, give her some lovin' and think of her seriously as a person and not a thing. That's what she wanted.

The sources I used was the book Marilyn by George Barris and the essay "marilyn monroe" by Gloria Steinem from the book called Legends by Anjelica Huston. The picture above was taken by George Barris.